Can I just write this blog without upsetting anyone? Probably not, but I do want to write this so I’ve chosen to put any possible upsetness up on a shelf where I can ignore it for now. Today I’m writing about race. Actually, I’m writing about race and all the other elements that make us different, but race is the most controversial. More than gender or sexual orientation, I believe. I’ve written and ranted about this before, but I need to clarify a huge aspect which brings much anger to some. I’m a black woman. Brown. I’m actually a lot less brown in real life than I am in my mind. I’m always surprised to notice how much lighter I am than the friends I thought were lighter than me. But when I was little… oh wait, I have to explain that I grew up in Groningen in the late '70s/early ‘80s. I was the only black kid in my school. So....... when I was little, in kindergarten to be precise, I didn’t know I was black. I was just a girl, the same as any other girl in class. I didn’t like the horrible, horrible school milk and I loved the fluoride mouthwash. Especially the blue one. I could run even faster than some of the boys and I was one of the few who knew that it was possible to poop and pee at the same time. One day I was home and looked at myself in the mirror and I realized for the first time that no one else had that halo of curly baby hair, proudly (read: stubbornly) crowning their face. I clearly remember this moment, because for the first time I saw my own face as different than all the other faces I saw every day. There was no judgement in that moment, just observation. With this background info out there now, I’ll continue about my actual point. The essence of this blog. And that is, that we should stop making race a difference. Stop making it relevant information, since it’s not. Look at the person, just like I did before I saw my own color, and start emphasizing the aspects that are relevant (like knowing that you can poop and pee at the same time). I want to see headlines like ‘Entrepreneur who overcame much adversity donates basketball court to childhood neighborhood’. Or ‘Astronaut who grew up in welfare receives award for scientific discovery’. Or ‘Young Activist with Dyslexia Writes First Book’. Why would it be relevant that they’re black. What’s significant is that they overcame adversity, that they accomplished something in spite of something. There’s much pain in the race problem. Unthinkable, unspeakable pain. Pain we would not wish upon our worst adversaries. Pain every black person is confronted with every day. Pain non-black people will never understand. Pain non-black people don’t see. Pain that doesn’t even exist in their universe. And it’s not fair. It’s not. It’s not fair that we have to deal with something that is so hard to overcome. Someone should pay for it. No. That’s not how it stops. Pain doesn’t stop by inflicting more pain. Pain stops by healing. By feeling aaaall of the cuts and bruises and wounds and lacerations. Mourn all you need to mourn, where there is space for mourning. Heal where there is space for healing. Agitate where there is space to agitate. And then, live in the energies of fairness and equality you want to see reign in the world. Pain stops by living in the vibes you do want to feel. And this shift is not going to come from the majority. The ones who can't feel it, because it's not their pain. This shift has to come from the ones feeling it. Healing always, always, always happens within. Now, take a moment and feel into the difference (I mean truly feel and not listen to what sounds better, but feeeeel the difference) between ‘successful black entrepreneur’ and ‘successful entrepreneur who overcame adversity’. Which feels more neutral? Most people think that to add the ‘black’ in the first headline brings a sense of pride to being black, but that is not truly the part that makes us proud. It’s the overcoming adversity implied that makes us proud, because they’re a minority and they've overcome more than the average majority entrepreneur. SO CELEBRATE THAT. And allow anyone else to join in the celebration. Why should a purple person not be allowed to feel proud of someone who became successful. Stop making race an aspect to celebrate or despise. It’s neither. If you want equality, stop making ‘black movies’. Stop making ‘black universities’. Stop making ‘black award ceremonies’. INFILTRATE the majority life and demand your own space there, as the worthy human being you are. If you want race to not make a difference, STOP MAKING IT A DIFFERENCE. There’s no point in harping on about equality if you keep glorifying the aspect that is the essence of the inequality. Glorifying it just perpetuates the inequality you don’t want. And what use is it anyway. Is it a special accomplishment to be born black? No. It is as much an accomplishment as being born with 10 fingers. It just happened. And we’re not celebrating everyone with 10 fingers either. Please look at race the same way if you have to decide to mention it or not. So the huge difference, that has hopefully become a bit clearer now, is that I’m not saying there isn’t any pain in being black. Or that the pain we deal with isn’t worthy of attention or healing. What kind of therapist would I be if that were my sentiment. What I am saying is that we, the ones who want equality for ourselves, should stop perpetuating inequality by celebrating our race, because that did not require any accomplishment and should absolutely not make us different in any way, either positively or negatively. Celebrate what the person did first, their accomplishment. Maybe explain why this was such an accomplishment afterwards, but don’t celebrate and perpetuate the apartheid. One love <3
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'Get rid of your ego!' 'Let go of your ego!' 'Overcome your ego!' You hear it all the time. Apparently, the ego is bad and we should act as if we don't have one. Having an ego makes you selfish, arrogant, proud and who knows what else. Oh I know what else, it makes you 'unspiritual'! I, of course, think differently or I wouldn't be writing this blog. God/Source/Creator/Allah/Jah/Upstairs/Infinite Intelligence doesn't make mistakes. And honestly, why do we think he would? She made every single person with an ego. It's built-in! That's gotta tell you that it must have a purpose. Its purpose is to keep us alive. It is at all times concerned with our survival and its task is to alert us to danger. To discern if we can take on that buffalo or if we should make a run for it. It helps us distinguish the edible root from the poisonous root. The ego is actually pretty useful. You should be high-fiveing your ego! Yes, I'll wait. It is your ego that helps you stock up on supplies, to guard your feeling of safety and abundance. If it has managed to accumulate enough (and preferably a little more than enough), it is satisfied. The ego gets a bad rep (for reputation, so don't write rap again) because we don't see how it is trying to serve us by securing our survival. That guy who is always bragging, does so because somehow his ego is convinced that by being the best, having the newest and being the fastest, his survival is secured. Back in caveman times, being the best hunter, the fastest runner, the one with the biggest supply for the winter months, meant you were gonna live to see another day. Are you getting a new appreciation for your ego? Can you see how sweet it is? I mean, who else takes care of you like that. Besides your mom. Same with your colleague who constantly takes all the credit. Same with the mom who makes a contest out of her child's accomplishments. Same with you posting the smartest comments on social media. It's all because of our concern for our own survival. But, our survival isn't as easily threatened as it used to be in caveman times. We now have several meals a day, we don't have to risk our lives to get them, we are protected from harsh weather conditions and we have modern medicine in case we need it. The ego didn't have as much to do for a few generations, so it quit its job. It was seen living under a bidge for a while, talking to itself and throwing stones at cars driving by. But now it is back. With a new strategy: stressors. It has been looking for stressors in our daily functioning because, in a way, stressors are a threat to our lives. We may not notice it consciously, but stress factors have us convinced that we'll 'survive' by being the best employee, having the best kid, being the smartest out there. The ego saw opportunity, so it took a shower, faked a master's degree in Human Survival and got its old job back. Because it loooooves keeping us alive. But all metaphors aside, let's ease up on our battle against the ego. It's a battle you'll loose either way. You cannot change your hardware. It may be noble to try to, but it's more mindful to accept aaaaaaall of yourself. Especially parts of yourself that keep you alive. I know it's tricky. We all want to have an easier life. And the possibility of getting it through arrogance, pride and selfishness smells so tantalizingly delicious. Except it isn't. Our fear for our own survival can play tricky tricks on the trickable mind. Giving in to the ego's strategies means it will grow stronger and trigger bigger reactions to the stressors in our lives. Your ego may tell you that you'll be passed for promotion if you keep letting your colleague take all the credit. And then you won't be able to afford groceries. And then you'll starve and then you're dead. Game over. So beat your colleague at their own game and demand all the credit for yourself! You're not about to starve are you?! Whoosaaaah.... This is when mindfulness comes in. - Take a deep breath and realize that your fears are irrational. That you'll be fine, without being the best. You've managed to get this far. Must mean you're pretty good at surviving. - Silently thank your ego for having your back and reassure it that you're fine. You have a roof over your head, a belly full of food and a healthy body. Tell it that it doesn't need to look for other threats. - Remind yourself that you're worthy of all the blessings life has to offer, just for existing, and see them coming into your life. - Whoosaaah again for good measure. Appreciate your ego. Let it exist within the space that was designed for it. Be aware when it starts to expand and cut it down when you see it growing in places where it shouldn't. But, let it exist. I'm not a human design expert, but I'm pretty sure we use the same mechanism to tell apart blue from yellow, left from right, big from small. Just like we're able to determine what's safe and what's dangerous. So Just like we're starting to appreciate natural hair, because we were fabulously born with it, we can start to appreciate our ego for the same reason. And you know what, once you train yourself to not be on the alert all the time for survival, you can actually start living. Now, repeat to yourself... I don't know what I came here to write about, but it's been a while since the last time and I feel like expressing myself in writing. Not privately, but publicly. Which, every time I feel this urge, is a very strange sensation for me, because I have an innate need to be invisible. To be as anonymous as possible. And at the same time I feel the need to influence the world and leave it a little better than when I came into it. As you can imagine, this is a strange limbo to live in. So I wonder. How did I end up in this limbo in the first place? Is it because we women have been conditioned into being pretty but invisible? Into not rocking the boat? Shying away from the spotlight? I think for a big part we have. We have allowed ourselves to be put in glass boxes where we can be looked at, but not heard. Where we can be pretty without being a personality. All of this is nothing new. We have heard this same song for the last 7 decades, at least. But we're almost in 2018 and the song hasn't changed. The way women react to it hasn't changed much either. We still bitch and moan about not being equal. We still shout from the top of our lungs that we women should unite. And at the same time we keep raising our sons differently than our daughters. At the same time we keep accepting less pay. At the same time we keep gossiping about other women every chance we get. We keep overreacting about awful things women do and underreacting about the same awful things men do. We keep assuming that a surgeon is a man. We keep underestimating a female CEO. We keep calling our female friends 'my bitches'. We keep letting ourselves be interrupted by someone else, but expect a man to keep talking. We keep associating weakness with feminine traits. How are we owning up to the fact that we are to blame for the biggest part of this inequality? Are we even aware of being the biggest party to cultivate this unbalance? No. We are unaware because we are too occupied living out our drama. Singing our song. Which means we must be getting something out of it. There must be a benefit for us hidden in the drama of yelling 'we should be equal to men!'. On some level, we are choosing the false benefits of our drama over authentic equality. It is not easy to admit this about ourselves. We would rather blame someone else for our misery. But if we're truly honest, we know. We KNOW that we are the ones who have been maintaining this misery. I think this is good. This is a first step. A first step to come out of any misery, really. Acknowledge your own contribution to it. And then?
And then we let this awareness sink in and take some time recover from this blow to our persona. And then we go out in the world again. With this huge essential shadow part of ourselves, integrated into our collective psyche. And now we live our daily lives, aware of our shadow. Aware of our actions that foster inequality, helplessness and dependency. And we learn to live unapologetically authentic lives. Grounded in the awareness of our actions. Aware of how we speak, how we dress, how we listen, how we treat others, how we own our weaknesses, how we love, how we respect, how we live. This awareness will make us whole. This awareness will replace the false benefits we have been getting from the drama. Because being whole is being enough. So what is corruption. For the last week I have been thinking about this question since I was asked to write a blog about it and, knowing that I’m not a corruption expert, I’ll just share my personal definition of corruption without looking it up in the dictionary. Corruption, to me, is every- and anything that is not truthful. Any situation, action or inaction where someone profits by not being honest. By my own definition we are all corrupt. Myself included. I’d have three fingers pointing back at myself if I dared to point one at someone else, claiming they’re corrupt. I download free music online and stream movies that are still playing in the theaters. Sometimes I drive into one-way streets from the wrong side. I have kept too much change for myself instead of giving it back to the cashier. I “borrowed” my mom’s car once to go out (and hit the fence trying to back it out of the yard. She never found out. Until now probably. Sorry mom!). And sometimes when I’m late I sliiiiiide through a red light, but this is only because I don’t have my own helicopter yet. There’s also corruption on a bigger scale. There are people who suddenly become the proud owners of a second car, a new yacht or a nice house on the waterfront. They got them as ‘gifts’, just for advising their clients that certain brands are better than others, when they should be neutral. Or what about giving your cousin the deal when you know he uses substandard materials. That’s corruption times corruption. Corruption². And there’s corruption on a huge scale, where a whole country or the entire world is duped because of some people’s interests. Certain treatment for illnesses that are used to “cure” a patient. Or letting everyone believe that certain foods are healthy when there’s evidence they’re not. Decimating the trees in the Amazon for mining operations. Power and profit are more important than everyone’s wellbeing, it seems. Some corruption seems worse than others, especially if more people suffer as a result. But in reality it’s all relative. As ‘the perpetrator’ we all tell ourselves that it’s actually not so bad. In the moment of truth we all convince ourselves that worse things have happened. That we have a right to be happy and that we work hard for our piece of the pie. When the ones who will be cheated out of their piece are anonymous faces we have never seen and will never speak to, the decision becomes easy. And then we all do what we do. We cheat. I won’t compare one form of corruption to another, but what I want you to be aware of is that we all go through the same process. We all get to a point in certain situations where we have to choose between honesty and dishonesty. And in some cases we all… I repeat: we ALL, choose dishonesty. We all choose to benefit off of others’ detriment. We all decide to use our god given brain cells to cheat. Why? Because we don’t want to own up to the thought that we’re not enough. Not rich enough. Not good enough. Not there fast enough. Not smart enough. Not in control enough. And we’re even more afraid that others will find out. The disgrace! I want to propose an alternative. Because living on a small rock in a mighty big ocean, we should all realize that we need to live with each other. Not just co-exist, but LIVE. We really can’t afford to be nasty, disrespectful or dishonest to our fellow islanders unless we are willing to let our standards slide and live on a viciously competitive small island in a few years’ time. An island where it’s “everyone for themselves”. We do have another option. This is it: I am ok with not being enough and I am ok with you too not being enough. I’m ok with all of us being a little less awesome, a little less in control, a little less flawless than we really are. I’m ok with slowing down. I’m ok with not knowing some things. I’m ok with you not being able to do some things. I’m ok with them being wealthier than I am. I’m ok. Period. I’m owning my ok-ness and I hope you do too. So……….. next time, while I sit patiently in the traffic jam home and you want to insert your car from the parallel road I expect to see you holding up an EXPLOSIVE DIARRHEA sign. That would be very ok. |
Photos used under Creative Commons from julian_fern, Humphrey King